the infinite possibilities of you plus me
by metaphorically-blue
Summary: Blink/Mush, companion to "my body". Five times Mush and Blink were just best friends, and the one time they weren't.  "Blink's lips are pressed against his heartbeat, and he doesn't even know it."


Blush, college!verse, has a little Sprace-y subtext and a lot of Jack/David text-text. Takes place about a month after the conclusion of _my body when it is with yours_. Also, I totally realize that no college on earth would have dorms named after New York boroughs (… oh, shush).

As always, reviews and constructive criticism are adored.

* * *

the infinite possibilities of you plus me

_-or,_

_five times Mush and Blink were just best friends_

_(and the one time they weren't)-_

_

* * *

_

1.

Michael and Ryan are best friends. Have been since freshman year of college, will be for about forever and a half, that sort of thing. They tell each other secrets – like after first semester finals freshman year, when Blink said he was gay, or after Mush (rather disastrously) dated Gabby and needed to unload and Blink somehow managed to sit still for five minutes and listen. They argue over Star Trek (Blink loves all the series; Mush prefers Next Generation) and rap (Blink managed to blow out his car's speakers; Mush consequentially told him that they weren't speaking until he could listen to good music again) and who gets the last Coke in the mini-fridge. Blink pushed him into helping with the Pulitzer feature; Mush made sure that Blink didn't do something that would get him expelled. It's that kind of relationship.

Besides, Blink is a touchy-feely sort of person without even meaning to be; Mush is far beyond used to having his personal space invaded with an arm around his shoulder and lips by his ear. It's just… normal, you know.

(Race ragged on Mush once for it at the end of freshman year, but he shrugged it off by pointing down at Jack and David – who practically _cuddled_ while still having girlfriends, come on – and told Race to go bug them first.)

So, in conclusion: best friends.

It doesn't matter that this morning, when Mush was trying to finish up one last assignment before breakfast and was sleepy and not exactly thinking clearly, Blink came in and rested his chin on Mush's shoulder to read the paper and Mush could feel his body heat all the way down his spine (and his mind going _this hasn't happened before_). Or that then he seized up until Blink finally wandered off to go get a shirt on, and the sudden relaxation almost socked Mush in the gut. Definitely doesn't matter.

Mush and Blink are best friends, and just that. No more, no less.

2.

Blink and Mush are watching a movie when Mush figures it out – about Jack and David, he means.

The movie is some action flick, full of explosions and massive threats and some spy gadgets that Blink immediately declares he wants for Christmas, and if Mush is a good friend, he'll get them for him, right? (Mush just nods.)

Around the time that the hero's girlfriend, trapped in the clutches of the spy turned traitor, declares that he can never win, Mush realizes that David has his English textbook. He had taken it earlier, saying his was lost somewhere under all of Jack's crap, and could he please, please borrow it to do the essay, it'd be back in a couple of hours, please Mush please? Of course Mush had said yes.

Unfortunately, Mush also hadn't done the essay yet, and he really needed his textbook, and it was no problem to get off the bed and walk down the hall and, seeing the door ajar and unlocked, push it open.

He'd been expecting a mess of stuff on the desks. There was one. He'd been expecting a pile of clothes on the floor, a rank of coffee cups sitting on one edge of a table. They were there. He'd been expecting to not see Jack (most of the time he's at Tibby's, working) and to find David dying of stress at his desk.

He hadn't been expecting to see Jack on top of David, shirt off and mouth pressed on a bare shoulder. He hadn't expected David's closed eyes and hands roaming up and down Jack's back. He hadn't expected to suddenly become an accidental voyeur, to find himself watching the two oblivious boys in front of him with a mixture of surprise and – well, not surprise.

The door swing shuts quietly behind Mush; the textbook is still sitting underneath a pile of other books and paraphernalia and what he now realizes had been David's shirt. Walking back to the room, he bites his lips and put his hands in his pockets.

He sits back down on the bed, easily throws out some lie about David not being done yet and flashes a smile, and soon enough Blink gets distracted again, watching the hero gather a band of trusty allies to go storm the villain's base. Eventually, Mush gets wrapped up in it too, or at least enough to not notice that Blink's falling asleep.

That is, until Blink's head is on Mush's shoulder.

Look, Mush will own up to the fact that his attempt at dating Gabby was an absolute failure, and that he doesn't exactly show much interest in the girls that get shy little crushes on him (and sometimes not so shy ones). He was also the one who punched out a guy who called Blink a fairy, or he would've been if Jack and Race hadn't gotten there first. He even let Blink drag him to some gay bar so that Blink would definitely have a ride home. But he's still been pretty sure that he's not gay.

Well, except for the part where he's totally doubting it now, with Blink's hair on Mush's shoulder and his breath hitting Mush's neck; Mush tries to focus on the heroes storming the lair with grenades and martial arts, sitting stock still, _best friends, just best friends_, and hoping against hope that Blink doesn't shift too much more or –

Blink's lips are pressed against his heartbeat, and he doesn't even know it.

Blink wakes up during the end credits. Mush laughs and tells him he missed the best part and tries not to meet his eyes for a second.

Then: "Do you think anything's going on with Jack and David?"

3.

Blink is outrageously, loudly drunk, and Race is singing the alma mater. Mush, as the designated driver, is nursing a Coke and would've left five seconds ago if it weren't for the fact that Blink would be stuck here, sloshed and singing at Specs' off-campus apartment.

_It's just some newsies thing, you gotta come_, Blink had said. _It'll be awesome, I swear!_, Blink had said. _Only one or two beers, I promise_, Blink had said.

Mush wonders if it's possible to drown yourself with a can of Coke.

A sudden weight presses on Mush's side, and a tilt of the chin tells him it's – who else – Blink, singing a wordless song in his ear before laughing, full and clear and Mush isn't quite sure what to do. So he sits there, feeling Blink press into him, his arm wrapping around Mush's stomach and right about now is when Mush's brain stops working completely.

Blink's breath is in his ear as he laughs, completely oblivious to the tug-of-war going on inside his best friend's head (_he's your best friend_ says what's probably his frontal lobes preventing him from being stupid; _but he's gay_ says a section growing bigger, all the other lobes and glands and neurons combining; _but you're straight_ is soft and gets drowned out completely when _are you sure about that_ races through his whole head, _are you sure about that are you sure you're sure?_)

(Goddamn hormones.)

"We should go back," he says, and he can hear that his voice is a little too loud and echoing because every other part of his mind has decided to take a leave of absence and visit the part where _Blink's mouth _is_ right there_. He swallows, says it again, and looks up and over towards the windows. He feels his cheeks heat up, and his throat starts to burn.

Blink laughs, and Mush twists his eyes towards Jack and David in a shadowy corner, Jack taking the beer out of David's hands and leaning down and he can hear Race yelling, "Honestly, Kelly, we thought you batted for the other side!" Then his awareness comes to the part where Blink's hand unconsciously runs itself up and down Mush's chest as he laughs again. "Nah, Mush, let's stay a while."

His frontal lobes have left the building.

"Yeah," he says. (He doesn't know why he's agreeing to this – or at least, he can pretend he doesn't.) "Yeah, okay."

(Wait. There's a second part:

Blink is half-asleep and his mouth is running in Mush's ear, "I like you Mush" he says "I like you a lot" and all Mush can think of is his brain going _are you sure about that?_, so he laughs and says, "You're drunk, Blink", crushing his Coke can in between his fingers and not quite looking out of the corner of his eye and Blink laughs breathlessly and says "Yeah".

Mush doesn't talk about it later, and that's why he doesn't know that Blink remembers it.)

4.

The best part of spring is when it finally gets sunny enough to play Ultimate. The day that Jack posts the sign up sheet for Manhattan dorm on the notice board, Blink bounds up to it and scrawls his name just under Jack's penciled-in _David Jacobs_, stepping aside so that Mush, who ambled up a little more slowly, could put his name underneath. After the deed is done, they go outside with their frisbee and throw it back and forth a couple of times, let their hands start remembering the feeling of plastic smacking into their palms.

They always play against Brooklyn – sometimes Queens or Bronx will join in, but Spot Conlon and his boys are guaranteed. Occasionally, Gabby or Itey's girlfriend what's-her-name will come and play a bit, but in general they prefer to watch a couple dozen of athletic males run around, sweaty and sometimes shirtless.

This year, Manhattan is skins for the first game, and Mush peels his shirt off, glad to feel the sunlight on his back. Blink grins at him, and Mush tries not to stare for a little too long, like what Jack is doing now as David stoops to talk to Gabby sitting in the shade. He glances around the rest of his team instead. Race has a collection of bruises marching along one shoulder, and he almost asks when Race got a girlfriend, only to see Spot wander up towards Race and decide to save it for later. Skits and Snitch are tossing the disc around, getting a feel for the weight of it, trying to test the winds and the air and the sunlight; a few feet away, Dutchy is laughing, doubled up and clutching on Specs' arm while searching for air. Itey is talking to his girlfriend, arm wrapped around her, his lips by her ear just like what Blink –

He looks back at Jack, who still hasn't stopped staring at David for less than two seconds at a time, but somehow managed to call the group together and go over rules again for people who already don't know them obsessively (which is pretty much no one). Jack tosses the disc in the air; it hurtles towards Skits, and the game is on.

Two hours later, they are winners. Mush has a bruise running down his chest from when a wild toss from Race went bad, and he's rubbing it in order to help it fade and wincing a little, but it's good, the sunlight and the smell of the grass and the wind messing up his hair – it's good. He can't help smiling at Blink when he bounces up to him, skin shining a little and grin shining more, and something around Mush's stomach twinges and goes, _oh_.

When Blink slings an arm around his shoulders, Mush threads his own around Blink's waist, and he smiles.

5.

It's a long, sweaty walk back to the dorm room. Mush showers first; he then pulls on a clean pair of jeans before looking for his green shirt with the cartoon birds but can't find it, not in his mess of a closet. He's still scoping out the drawers when Blink comes into the main room, wearing shorts and dripping a little and generally looking like the best thing Mush has ever seen.

This is what Mush thinks about: making Blink laugh his big booming laugh and smile like he'd been doing earlier when they'd won and just being happy and content and being.

He's standing there, watching Blink and letting his brain run through thousands of scenarios and moments and possibilities, everything seems just so endless now, and the thing that went _oh_ earlier goes _you're sure._

Blink is smiling, but it seems a little forced, a little embarrassed, so Mush says _what?_ In response, Blink stalls, puts a hand behind his neck, looks away. "Well, uh –"

Suddenly, Mush is acutely aware that he still hasn't found his shirt, that his hair is still drying, leaving little trails of water down his back, and that Blink is the exact same way, and this fact has become incredibly important for reasons that Mush can't quite explain. Suddenly, Mush walks forward a little, and Blink stumbles for just a second before continuing.

"—there's something I'd like to do, and uh, I think it'd be a little awkward, you know, so I'm thinking it's probably a pretty terrible idea but really appealing, and –" Blink pauses, closing his eye before opening it again and apparently he's made up his mind; he smiles, and "—ah, fuck it."

Blink leans forwards (_just best friends, right, you're sure, right?_) and Mush's brain is running too slow and –

_Oh_.

0.

It lasts just a moment, until Blink steps away, laughing a little nervously and trying to turn away from Mush. It doesn't work when Mush's arm moves forwards without any thought, grabbing Blink's wrist, and Mush can hear himself saying "Wait".

To his credit, Blink stops and stands there, not quite making eye contact, but close enough for Mush.

Of course, his mind is still in the slow lane, leaving him to say something intelligent such as: "I, uh –"

Blink is still standing there, but the smile is fading more rapidly than Mush likes, and now he's focusing on some point over Mush's head.

"I, just – I liked. That. You. I like you."

The words tumble out, a little too fast for him, and Blink just stands there, not reacting, and that is so unlike him that Mush decides to say it again, just to make sure he heard him. "I like you. Um." He stops, starts again. "I mean, as a best friend, yeah" – don't stop there – "but also – I mean, I'm kind of confused, but, uh –"

As Mush says this, a look of comprehension floods Blink's face. He watches Blink's smile spread again, even as his mouth keeps trying to define what's been going on ever since (he doesn't know. Maybe that morning with the essay, maybe that time with the movie. Maybe that time when they decided to be roommates. Maybe that time they met.) He almost doesn't notice when Blink's hand slips to catch his fingers and reels him in to make eye contact, but then he does, and –

His mouth doesn't stop until Blink makes it stop.

This time, they pull apart in a mutual fashion. Then they sit on the bed, and sort of stare at the ceiling for a bit, until Mush says, his hand catching Blink's on the cover:

"I probably shouldn't have told Race to compare us to Jack and David."

Blink laughs, and leans in to press his mouth on Mush's heartbeat, and Mush smiles.


End file.
